Louis XIV style
During the second period (1660–1690), under the personal rule of the King, the style of architecture and decoration became more classical, triumphant and ostentatious, expressed in the building of the Palace of Versailles, first by Louis Le Vau and then Jules Hardouin-Mansart.
It combined a façade dominated and rhymed by colossal classical columns, beneath a dome, imported from the Italian Baroque architecture, along with a number of original features, such as a semicircular salon which looked out on the vast French formal garden created by André Le Nôtre.
Hardouin-Mansart constructed the Grand Trianon (completed 1687), single-story royal retreat with arched windows alternating with pairs of columns, and a flat roof and balustrade.
The design was worked on successively by Jules Hardouin-Mansart, Jacques Lemercier and Pierre Le Muet before being completed by Gabriel Leduc.
[5] The finest church interior of the late Louis XIV period is the chapel of the Palace of Versailles, created between 1697 and 1710 by Hardouin-Mansart and his successor as court architect, Robert de Cotte.
The interior of the chapel opened up and lightened by the use of classical columns placed on the tribune, one level above the ground floor, to support the weight of the vaulted ceiling.
[5] Though Louis XIV was later accused of having ignored Paris, his reign saw several massive architectural projects which opened up space and ornamented the center of the city.
The old brick and stone of the Henry IV squares was replaced by the Grand Style of monumental columns, which usually were part of the façade itself, rather than standing separately.
[6] The first such complex of buildings built under Louis XIV was the Collège des Quatre-Nations (now the Institut de France) (1662–1668), facing the Louvre.
The Hôtel Royal des Invalides – a complex for war veterans consisting of residences, a hospital, and a chapel – was constructed by Libéral Bruant and Jules Hardouin-Mansart (1671–1679).
Louis XIV then commissioned Hardouin-Mansart to construct a separate private royal chapel featuring a striking dome, the Église du Dôme, which was added to complete the complex in 1708.
[7] In the early Louis XIV style, the principle characteristics of decor were a richness of materials and an effort to achieve a monumental effect.
Decorative elements on the walls of the early Louis XIV style were usually intended to celebrate the military success, majesty and cultural achievements of the King.
They often featured military trophies, with helmets, oak leaves symbolizing victory, and masses of weapons, usually made of glided bronze or sculpted wood, in relief surrounded by marble.
In the late Louis XIV period, after 1690, new elements began to appear, that were less militaristic and more fantastic; particularly seashells, surrounded by elaborate sinuous lines and curves; and exotic designs, including arabesques and Chinoiserie.
It was based on the inlay of ebony and other rare woods, a technique first used in Florence in the 15th century, which was refined and developed by Boulle and others working for Louis XIV.
[13] The French faience industry received another huge boost when, late in Louis's reign in 1709, the king pressured the wealthy to donate their silver plate, previously what they normally used to dine, to his treasury to help pay for his wars.
With the death in 1661 of Cardinal Mazarin, the King's chief minister, Louis decided to take personal charge of all aspects of government, including the arts.
At the same time, with the assistance of Le Brun, Colbert took charge of the Royal Academy of Painting and Sculpture, which had been founded by Cardinal Mazarin.
[18] The major painters of the later reign of Louis XIV included Hyacinthe Rigaud (1659–1743) who came to Paris in 1681, and attracted the attention of Le Brun.
Rigaud soon had an elaborate workshop in place for making portraits of the nobility; he employed specialized artists to create the costumes and draperies, and others to paint the backgrounds, ranging from battlefields to gardens to salons, while he concentrated on the composition, colors and especially the faces.
[18] Georges de La Tour (1593–1652) was another important figure in the Louis XIV style; he was given a title, named court painter of the King, and received high payments for his portraits, though he rarely ever came to Paris, preferring to work in his home town of Lunéville.
"[19] In his final years, Louis XIV's tastes changed again, under the influence of his morganic wife, Madame de Maintenon, toward more religious and meditative themes.
He was soon producing monumental sculpture to accompany the new buildings constructed by Louis XIV; he made a Charlemagne for the royal chapel at Les Invalides, and then a large number of statues for the new Park at Versailles and then at the Château de Marly.
He also made a series of greatly admired portrait sculptures of the leading statesmen and artists of the time; Louis XIV at Versailles, Colbert (for his tomb at the Church of Saint Eustache; Cardinal Mazarin in the Collège des Quatre-Nations (now the Institut de France) in Paris; the playwright Jean Racine; the architect Vauban and the garden designer André Le Nôtre.
He made many statues and decorations for the Palace of Versailles, as well as the Caryatids for the eastern façade of the Pavilion du Horloge of the Louvre, facing the Cour Carré, which were based both on a study of the original Greek models, and on the work of Michelangelo.
The return of Louis XIV and Queen Maria Theresa to Paris after his coronation in 1660 was celebrated by a grand event on a fairground at the gates of the city, where large thrones were constructed for the new monarchs.
He was particularly responsible for introducing the a modified version of the grotesque style of ornament, originally created in Italy by Raphael, into French interior design.
The first important garden à la française was the Château of Vaux-le-Vicomte, created for Nicolas Fouquet, the superintendent of finances to Louis XIV, beginning in 1656.
A grand perspective of 1500 meters extended from the foot of the château to a copy of the Farnese Hercules; and the space was filled with parterres of evergreen shrubs in ornamental patterns, bordered by colored sand, and the alleys were decorated at regular intervals by statues, basins, fountains, and carefully sculpted topiaries.
